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The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
455. The Influence Equation: Transformational Change with Steve Martin
00:45:57
In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, Melina Palmer is joined by Steve Martin, the acclaimed author of Influence at Work and a leading expert in the psychology of persuasion. Steve is known for his collaboration with Robert Cialdini and his...
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Melina Palmer
Hey there Melina. Here I'm excited to share.
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I'm teaching two virtual courses in Applied Behavioral Economics which are enrolling now. Advanced concepts of Behavioral Economics and Internal Communication and Change management.
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So if you're interested, don't delay, learn more and enroll at HBL. Like Human Behavior Lab dot TAMU. Like Texas A&M University EDU. Again, that's HBL dot TAMU.
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EDU and click on Certificate program when you're ready. Let's start the show. Welcome to episode 455 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Steve Martin, author of Influence at Work. Ready? Let's get started.
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Steve Martin
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.
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Melina Palmer
Hello.
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Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation I'm joined by Steve Martin. Steve is a Royal Society nominated author and expert in the psychology of persuasion and behavioral change. He is CEO of Influence at Work and co author of several international best selling books including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller yes, 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion. His books have sold over 1¼ million copies and been translated into 27 languages. His work, Applying Influence and Persuasion Science to Business and Public Policy have been featured in the academic, national and international press including Nature, the New York Times, BBC T and radio, the Times, Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, the Economist, Financial Times and Time Magazine. Steve is Faculty Director of Behavioral Science at Columbia Business School and a guest lecturer on MBA and Senior Executive Education programs at the London School of Economics and Harvard. His new book Influence at Work was published by The Economist in September 2024 and is the focus of our conversation today. Really quickly, before we get into that conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch with Steve and myself and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 45 5. Now let's jump right in. Steve Martin, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.
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Steve Martin
Hello Melina, lovely to be here.
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Melina Palmer
Yes, I'm so excited to have you with us today. And as we were saying, this is our first like one on one chat. So we had a little bit of Time. But I am very much aware of you. As we were saying, and for everyone who's listening that does not yet know who you are, can you please share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
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Steve Martin
Sure. Happy to. So let me start by saying clearly I'm not that Steve Martin. I find myself when I come to the US a lot and I seem to be a reliable source of disappointment for hotel check in staff who look down at the screen. Then they look up at me and they go, yeah, you're not him. So I'm Steve Martin, the influence and persuasion guy. Probably best known for the work that I've been doing these last 22, 23 years with Robert Cialdini, one of our founding fathers of behavioral science. And I also lead a company called Influence at Work. I have a team of 15 people that do a lot of applied behavioral science and influence research in the field. And I'm also faculty director of Behavioral science at Columbia Business School.
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Melina Palmer
Wonderful.
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So have to ask, have you gotten any amazing upgrades over the years or things where people think you're that Steve Martin or not quite well, and then.
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Steve Martin
They quickly take them away when they realize I'm not.
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Melina Palmer
Oh, darn. That's like a double negative anchoring situation. Situation, indeed.
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Steve Martin
I experienced both that gain and the immediate loss afterwards. So sometimes it's better not to have got it in the first place.
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Melina Palmer
Yes, definitely. That is definitely, like I said, negative anchoring sort of problem there for sure. Well, you're here to be talking about your new book, Influence at Work, aptly named, like you said, with your business name and everything. And in it you share about, you know, an influence equation which I really enjoy. Can you share a little bit about what brought you to what inspired the book and how we got here?
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Steve Martin
Yeah, there was a couple of things. First of all, I actually owed my editor. So Clare Gristaylor was the editor of yes. That Bob Noah and I published back in 2008. That kind of went crazy and certainly changed my life. And so when she came and said, look, I'm working for the Economist now and we'd really like to write a book, I kind of owed her. And so I was predisposed to say yes to Clare. So that was one of the things. The other was that they, they set a challenge for me, which I was daunted by actually Molina to begin with, which was this idea of how do we simplify something that is so incredibly complex, so incredibly socially intertwined? You know, there's, there's so much that has been written about influence, and there's so much history, and they wanted to kind of bring some order, some structure to it. It strikes me that a lot of the work that is currently being done and when people typically think about influence, I think they often think about it in a transactional kind of way. How do I get my kids to do their homework? How do I persuade my boss to send me on that training course? How do I persuade that customer that they should do business with me? And we see it typically as a transaction. But if we're going to address some of the real big challenges that we actually face in organizations, politically and actually more broadly around the world, I think we need to take a more transformational approach. And it strikes me that influence is everywhere. It plays a huge part in who we are, what we do, how we act, what we believe. And so that kind of was a challenge that I wanted to kind of think a little bit more about. And the fact that the book was being published by the Economist as well, which is a publication I've long admired and does me no harm to be regarded as one of their authors, those were the things that kind of got me writing.
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Melina Palmer
Oh, I love that. So since you. You mentioned. Yes, right. Can you. Can you share a little bit about that, too, knowing, you know, we're here to talk about the. The newer book, but. Yeah, yeah. How did that all come about? And what's the kind of premise for. For people who aren't familiar?
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Steve Martin
Well, there is a story. I got a call one day from a friend of mine who said, you're in the Times, the London newspaper. And so I ran down to the shop. This is when we still actually bought newspapers in shops, you remember? And I looked, and actually, it wasn't me that was in the Times at all. It was actually an old study that Bob had done way back in the 1970s when he was still an assistant professor at ASU when he first joined, and ever the opportunist. Molina. What I did was I. I dropped a line to the journalist and I said, hey, look, you may not know this, but, you know, you've cited a study that Bob Cialdini done. You know, I work with Bob. I've known Bob for a number of years. You know, if he ever comes through London, you're interested in meeting him, let us know. And I just left it at that. And he contacted me, he emailed me back, and he said, I love that book and I talk about it to my friends all the time. He let us know next time Bob's in London. I'll take you to lunch. And so a couple of months later, Bob was coming through London, so we went and met him. Turns out this journalist isn't just any journalist, it's Lord Danny Finkelstein. So senior columnist at the Times appear in the House of Lords. And so we met him a couple of weeks later, he wrote about us again. And at this point, someone from the publishing world phoned up and said, you know, I used to work for Danny, and if he writes about stuff, it's probably important. Have you thought about writing a book? And I said, bob's written the book. It was written in 1984. Influence celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. And I think a lot of people forget that. And he said, no, no, no, no, there must be a new book or at least a kind of practitioner's guide to it. Maybe you could write that. And so I called Bob and I said, well, look, what do you think this guy's calling us? And he, Bob says, well, look, I'll write it as long as I write it with you. And I think we should get Noah, one of our doctor students at the time, to do it with us. And we'd been collecting up these examples of applied influence, the principles of influence in the real world. And it seemed that a lot of people were interested in that. And so that was how yes was born, published originally by Claire Gristaylor, who was that editor I spoke about a few moments ago. And then it, it was a life changer. It got serialized in the Times, of course, Danny serialized, that arranged for that. And then it got published in the U.S. it hit the New York Times bestseller list, the Business Week, Wall Street Journal. And my life changed. And thanks to Profile and to Bob, that's the story of yes.
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Melina Palmer
Yeah, well, and I think it's also about the, you know, reciprocity coming in there, all those principles of influence. Right. That's. I tell a lot the story because people will say, you know, podcast like.
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The main thing that you do, or.
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Like, how does this come about? And is it like, what funnels the business? Right. Which I would say every single thing I've ever done, I can link back to the podcast in some way since I've had it, and even like teaching at Texas A and M. So there was a very early on, and I'm doing the ratings and doing shout outs on the show for five star reviews and, and saying, hey, and if, you know, you see, you know, go check out at Steve Martin because like, blah, blah, thanks for the Review, you know, those sorts of things. Like I said, especially early on to get that social proof moving for us, reciprocity and whatnot.
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And there was one person where I.
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Said, hey, like at pool, Jeff, don't really know. Couldn't find you on the socials, but, you know, email me. We'll get a proper, you know, interaction going. Turns out, you know, he's helping to run the program in the human behavior lab at Texas A and M. And they love the show and they're using it for all their doctors, doctoral students, and like, keep the conversation like, wow, that's amazing. And you keep doing the back and forth versus just saying like, oh, thank you, the end, Right. But the, like, knowing that reciprocity has that give and take, which I, I know you talk about in, in the new book, right, about the, you know, the person who did the favor. Right. So there's the story about the. The person. It's toward the end of the. The book, but that they are. Had a plan for the day and then it was the sales call and somebody called and they had to change things. I know we're kind of going all over the place here, but can you share about that story and some of this piece on reciprocity?
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Steve Martin
I can. I was there, I was sitting in the car alongside him. You know, he was going to go see some customers. We were doing some work for this company, and he got a call from a pretty distraught customer of his, you know, who needed help. And he pretty much dropped everything and got these spare parts that this particular customer of his wanted. And, you know, he put some, you know, real innovative thinking into collecting them. And then he drove for a couple of hours with me and delivered them just in time. And, you know, as you can imagine, this customer's face was an absolute picture of gratitude and appreciation. And, you know, he said, you know, I never ever thought that, you know, I be able to kind of do what I need to do. He needed these medical devices to do some training for his students. He was a doctor. And he turned around, he said, I don't know how I'm ever going to thank you, but I really appreciate it. And the guy went, hey, no problem. I'll do it for anyone. Turned out, walked out the door. And I kind of thought about that afterwards. And it's that trepidatious moment, isn't it? Because you do someone a favor and you typically are inclined to kind of pass those moments by. Turns out there's a lot of research that shows that people are especially likely to Be willing to say yes to a request after they've done a favor for someone, particularly the extent to which it's significant, it's meaningful, which is what this guy actually did. But to turn around in that moment and then say, well, I have done you a favor and now you owe me, seems wholly inappropriate. So I did wonder whether or not he maybe called him a few days later and said, hey, how did the training session go? And in the full expectation the guy would probably turn around, but it went fine. And again, it's all thanks to you. And turns out the guy told. Turned around to me and told me afterwards. He said, you know, this guy's pretty important, but it's his boss that, you know, really makes the decisions. And I. I never seem to be able to get an appointment or a meeting with him. And I just wonder whether or not he used that entirely genuine opportunity that he created to perhaps get that appointment. Because I suspect that if he did call a couple of days later, this guy, who would still be in a. I think a deep state of appreciation for him, if he said, look, I wonder if you might be able to help me, give me some advice about how I can get in front of your boss. I think he'd have probably pulled out the stops for that.
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Melina Palmer
Yeah. Well. And so. So it sounds like you don't know if he ever did follow up, which. But it's good. It leaves it in a linger if he. If he asked about that over time. But I also thought it was interesting that, like you said, saying that, oh, I do it for anyone, which is kind of a letdown. Right. As far as, like, you want to feel special in the moment, like, you really matter to me. And so I did this for you felt like another point in the framing of the response. Right. To be able to help that person to feel special in that. In that moment. What are your thoughts on that?
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Steve Martin
Well, I think that's exactly right, Molina. It's an awkward one, isn't it? Because we probably do want to do our best by others, help them out. And so to point out or to signal the cost, whether it's a financial one or whether it's a more personal one that we've essentially endured to help that person out in the hope that they will remember us in the future. The evidence suggests that increasingly, people, after being in receipt of a favor, typically forget it pretty quickly. And of course, the challenge then is that if you go back a couple of months later and in the full expectation that this person will remember, and then they don't in a way, your gift giving or your helping has potentially fueled resentment. It's kind of bizarre, isn't it, that we could end up actually creating resentment in people by giving them things. So it does seem that there's an expectation or at least a helpful frame of mind to think about how exchange actually works. Tons of studies that have actually been done in this, in organizations, you know that, you know, the managers that are considered the most effective managers are typically those that are people that go out their way to help others, proactively help other departments, colleagues, these kind of things. And what makes them effective is not necessarily the proactive help that they actually give, but once they've given that help, they frame it in the context of, this is a natural exchange. It's what we do for each other. And so therefore, then that act either gets paid forward to another department, or it creates a reciprocal exchange that helps everyone. If we simply turn around and say, well, no problems, all part of the service, it strikes me that we start that connection and then by saying that, we end it as well before it gets that opportunity to start to cycle.
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Melina Palmer
Yeah, I love that in the book you give toward the end, I think it's chapter eight that you have kind of the top questions that you've been asked over the years and saying, okay, so here's. I think, fittingly, potentially, it's probably nine of the top questions that you get asked to go with the theme of the book and the three and everything that you have there. But as you know, one of these here, I'm guessing people have questions about, you know, if there is an ideal sort of time or some language to be using or what you might suggest in that moment. So if you go back, like you're saying, so in the moment, it may feel like it's too soon. Right. They're. They're stressed. So if we go to that doctor.
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Right.
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So they're rushing to get to whatever they're going to do. And if I ask him, he said that, you know, if there's ever anything I can do for you, like one we know, we don't want to say, yeah, you owe me. Right.
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Because.
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Right.
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Gross.
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We also don't want to say, oh, no, don't worry about it.
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Right.
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Because then we lost the opportunity. But it might not be the perfect moment to say, oh, you know, I've been trying to get a meeting with your boss when they might forget because they're busy. You know, is it a. Like you said, next day, how'd the training go? And I was thinking about it and. Or is it, you know, when does it feel like it's too long? And what some of the language you might recommend in the moment, if you, if you could go back and that was you, you know, what are your thoughts on those interactions?
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Steve Martin
Well, I think I pretty quickly follow up. You know, we are increasingly creatures of the present tense. The moment now does that kind of, what's the saying, that the past is a foreign country, the future is too. We seem to be residing in the now and to hell with what happens in 5, 10, 15 minutes time. And so if our attention is so focused on that, it strikes me that, you know, as. As quickly as it is appropriate an opportunity to do so, we should do that. I like, you know, Bob always. We've talked about this, Bob and I, for years. Bob's talked about this moment for decades. And I still think that his response is probably one of the preferred ones, which is to simply say, look, I'm happy to help because I know that if the situation was ever reversed, you would probably do the same for me. Right. And it signals that exchange that, you know, there is, there's a quality and there's a connection and there's a relationship to me doing something for you. But, but then you. And at some point, when you're available and when you've got the opportunity to do it back, because that essentially is the core of a human relationship. Right. You know, one of the things that's really interesting about this, we should probably talk about the equation in a second rather than just reciprocity. One of the things that's really important to note about reciprocity is it is the relationship starter. It is the principle that we look to, to build networks, to build connections, to build relationships, to gain the approval of others. And so invariably it is the starting point of, of most connections. And so for that reason, and it strikes me that if there's going to be a starting point, there needs to be a continuation point as well. And that's the moment that I think that continuation is activated.
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Melina Palmer
Definitely. All those micro moments of our lives where you can be either giving back, moving the relationship forward, or kind of derailing things if you're not careful about it. So as you said, the equation, I'll just kick it back. Tell us about it. What's, what is the equation? How did it come about? And we'll break it down.
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Steve Martin
Well, it came about from this challenge that I see from Clare and the economist and profile, to bring some order to influence. It's super complex so how do we simplify it? But at the same time, how do we simplify it in a way that we can actually use it for more than just transactional interactions? As I say, getting your boss to give you a pay rise or getting the kids to pick up their toys from the. The carpet, whatever. Because I am primarily interested now, Bob, too, in how we use influence as a tool for transformational change as opposed to transactional change. And it struck me that one of the things that we've always done both with influence, with yes, and even the Messenger's book of a few years ago, was to write about influence in the moment and always write about the social characteristics. So the principles of social influence, the factors beyond economics and evidence that cause people to be persuaded or influenced to say yes to something or reject something. And it struck me that it would be important to bring those two elements of evidence and economics back in, because they are really, really important. You know, there's tons of evidence. Say if you want someone to do something, pay them. Right? You know, give the site, give an example in the book of the Australian electoral system. Australia, you know, dodgy dictatorships aside, Australia has the highest turnout in elections of any country in the world. And there's a simple reason. If you don't vote, you get fined. That doesn't strike me as a social influence strategy. That just strikes me as an economic incentive. And so we'd have to think about this. And so the equation, Molina, simply is this. It's that successful influence is typically brought about by a combination of three things. Okay, there's some evidence that's presented. There is some economic argument, and then there is an emotional characteristic to that argument. And as with any equation, there is a common denominator, and the common denominator in our influence equation is context. So depending on the situation you're in, what amount of evidence you use compared to the emotional appeal, or how much the economics leverage an outcome compared to evidence and emotion will change, but they will always be there in some combination. And the analogy, the metaphor, if you like, that I use to kind of bring sense to this is the primary colors. So in the same way as we can create any color by combining two or three of the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue, we can do the same with influence. We can create a successful influence strategy by ensuring that our appeal, our approach that we lay out the plan has that combination. And what's really interesting is that it's never equal amounts of those three things. It's never equally emotion, economics, and evidence. One or two will always outweigh the others. Which also is kind of interesting because I don't know if you know what color you get if you mix equal amounts of the three primary colors.
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Melina Palmer
Yucky brown.
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Steve Martin
A yucky brown. Yeah. And no one wants a yucky brown. Influence strategy. Right. So it's kind of. It kind of makes sense from that perspective as well. So I like that as a metaphor. And then what we do in the book is we simply talk about, in turn, how you optimize the evidence you present, how you optimize an economic argument, or how you leverage emotion.
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Melina Palmer
Hmm. I love it. So in the book, so everyone knows. So it's broken into. So there are three parts, three chapters each, which is why I was saying the thing about the. The nine right in there.
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Yeah.
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And threes, which you do explain a little bit about why you made that choice, which people can find when they. When they read it. So each, of course, here of evidence, economics, and emotion have their own full chapter, so we're getting more detail about them. What have you found? Whatever you found is the best way to be explained. Explaining through, you know, practically thinking through what this looks like. If it's like, here's a situation, and if you do it this way with more emotion or with more evidence, or if you want to break them down and give an example of each, I say, you know, it's a. Choose your own adventure of what you find as the best way to explain the work.
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Steve Martin
Well, I'm really pleased that you picked up on that rule of three. I'm becoming somewhat obsessed with this rule of three. It seems to be everywhere. I don't know if there's any Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans out there who, you know, have been assured that the meaning of life is 42. I. I would make a claim that actually the meaning of life is three. It's. It's a. It's a really fascinating. Triumphant of contributions. It's the smallest number we can present to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's the. The smallest number that we need of a fact to make sense of something. And if we can make sense of it, then we derive meaning, and then. Then we can start to think about what we believe in life, these kind of things. But that's exactly what I do in the book, Molina. So for evidence, I don't actually talk about evidence itself because it strikes me that evidence is actually in itself be in the form of data, information, a pretty poor tool for influence. It's always what we compare the evidence to that seems to engage people or who delivers the evidence or how much we actually present. And what's interesting about that, from an influence perspective, is that none of those things talk to the quality of the argument. So the point is, it's never the evidence by itself. And I think anyone that's been in a situation, I mean, this is the Brainy business podcast, so let's talk about it in an organizational and a workplace setting. Those people that go into situations and say, you know, I've got great evidence to support me here. You know, I've got all the data, I've got all the information on my side, and then they start to kind of present it, reams and reams and reams of it. And. And then become almost kind of flummoxed by the fact that sea of evidence that they've actually presented. And there's. There's a simple reason why, and it's. There's a difference between having a good case to make and making that case well. And I think we increasingly fall foul of. Well, if I provide more and more data and evidence, I can convince these people, I can change their minds about this idea, and their actions will follow. Well, we know how badly that often ends. Often it's the reverse. People will change their behaviors to catch up with how their minds are thinking at a particular moment in time. And so that's what we do in evidence. I answer the question. I assume you've got a good case to make. How do you make it well with evidence, and in similarly, how do you make it? Well, if your argument is an economic one, and again, similar situation, it's not necessarily the incentive itself or the financial mechanism or economics of an argument. It's actually how they're framed, how they're timed, almost. We did some studies. There's a big bit in the book about some studies we did with New York bus drivers. You know, we want to persuade them to drive safely. Arguably, that is a transformational change, not just a transactional change, because if we can get them to drive safely for months and years throughout their career, you know, we reduce litigation, we potentially save lives. That seems pretty transformational. Turns out that the simplest thing to do is to pay them, but it's not necessarily how much you pay them, but rather how regularly you pay them. Pay them 100 bucks a month to drive safely, they do it for three or four months, and then they largely regress back to how they were in the first place. Pay them 25 bucks every four weeks, though, and they Continue. So that's a really nice example there of. It's not the economics in this instance in terms of the amount, it's about the frequency and the ownership of it. Because one of the other things we did is we replicated John List's old studies from the Chinese production lines of, you know, 10, 15 years ago. And we ran an experiment where we actually paid these bus drivers in advance, okay, so you get 25 bucks at the beginning of the week. If you happen to not have complied with the safety regulations that you're required to undertake, then we take that money back at the end of the week. We never took the money back. So that's a good example. And it's simply with emotion. Emotions are data we are increasingly facing pretty much every day now. Molina, questions that are hard to answer. And, you know, not the first to say this, but our typical response to answering hard questions is to answer an easier one that wasn't asked. And typically that easier question is, how do I feel about this? And so if you are interested in transformational change, if you are interested in creating strategies that have a persistent, sustained influence on your business, your workplace, wherever you might work and wherever you work in the world, you can create a pretty successful strategy by thinking through each of these three components in turn and optimizing them for the context you're in.
- [29:55]
Melina Palmer
And that's the offer here, definitely. And I know so many people that are listening are interested in that transformational change, like you said, versus transactional, like both matter, it's good. We need them in varying contexts. But I know from my own clients and just so many people are thinking about at this global level. You know, for as one example, I have multiple clients that are looking at being more consumer centric, however they want to define that in their organization and where these are organizations of tens of thousands or, you know, maybe even hundreds of thousands of employees, right? Like, then you say, what, how, how do we even go about this?
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Right?
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You have this vision of what can be, and then you realize there are so many moving parts and processes and unwritten rules and, and things and so many people and job roles and all the contexts. And it's really easy to just, you know, ostrich that or like you said, satisfy SA forever and feel like you're making progress, but really just be doing some busy work that that's not going to move the needle. So what advice do you have for those leaders at those organizations that I know are listening that are thinking about this transformational change on a large, often global scale? Where would they start as they're thinking about this influence equation if. And we'll just use the example again because I know many of my clients are thinking about this, of the, like, switching to be more consumer centric, consumer focused in our organization. And we want that like part of the customer to really sing through in everything we do. You know, where would you recommend they start if they're not there now?
- [31:45]
Steve Martin
Well, a few things come to mind. But by the way, you don't ask the easy questions, do you? I think where I would begin to answer this question is to actually cite a piece of research that my own team have just recently published in the Harvard Business Review, actually. And in this instance, the context is not to be more consumer centric, although I think you'll see the parallels in a minute, but to be more climate centric. And so our challenge here, it is a global challenge and it concerns hundreds of thousands of people, in fact, a couple of million people in fact. And the challenge was a sustainability one. So how do you create in this situation an agricultural system, so this is in Southeast Asia, that reduces its reliance on heavy emitting fertilizers and reduces its reliance on burning crops at the end of the harvest. So if you think about it, all the economics of the situation, our way to doing the quickest, easiest, cheapest thing. And this is an organization that is made up of literally tens of thousands of different farming communities and families and things like this. And we actually found that the evidence itself probably didn't matter that much because people have been banging on for so long about why it's important, that it was almost like this doesn't really matter so much here. People know about the message. Simply going in and just saying more and more about the reason why was not actually certainly going to be helpful here. So there were two things that this was very much about the emotional and economic aspects of our equation. So the first thing we did was we as a team decided what could everybody do that was a step in the right direction, but that would be a compromise from the ideal. I think sometimes we go into situations and we think, I want someone to do this. Someone else says, no, I want to do this. And it becomes a little bit of a kind of almost a bun fight. Who's going to move first? And so what we did in these experiments, and by the way, this is a test of four years. So I cannot prove that these causally created this change. But what I can show is that there were three things that were consistent across four years that did move the needle and seem to have this persistent effect. So the first was as a leader, as a manager, be the first to compromise. Recognize that what you want people to do ideally is as much as that might be a stretch goal and it might be important, the realities of the world mean that you're going to end up probably having a fight. So the first thing we did is actually say, okay, what could we realistically expect people to do? And actually give them that as a compromise in the first instance. And there's tons of research actually from. From not only from the laboratory, but actually business experiments. So one of the runs I cite is in Netflix, when they switched over from kind of DVD to streaming and these kind of things, they allowed people to keep their membership. And so we allowed people in these farming communities to kind of keep their practices and just shifted a change slightly in terms of a compromise that was given first. The second thing we did was to create a unification of why this change was important. So we didn't think about what was different in every situation. We focused on what was always the same. So we created these environments where we weren't doing things onto others, or the farming unions and the industrial agricultural communities and interested groups and the government weren't doing it. We are doing it for families. So one of the things that was really interesting about crop burning, for example, is that it's quick, it's efficient, and it's also devastating for their children because they end up with all sorts of bronchial infections and these kind of things. So second thing was what holds everyone together here? So a compromise, a unification. And then the third thing we did is we actually just found someone that would act as a system steward, a kind of the soccer coach on the side, if you like. Bob and I did some experience a few years ago in the National Health Service in the uk and we demonstrated beautifully how you could reduce the number of people that fail to show up for their health appointments using three simple strategies from basic social influence, straight out of the influence in the S books. And we ran it for six months. We reduced those shows perfect. We wrote it up, got it published, and then we phoned them about a year later and said, hey, how's it going? And they went, oh, it's all gone back to how it was before. We're like, well, why? And they went, oh, well. We only thought we had to do the changes while the experiment was going on. I was like, are you crazy? It's just what we. We come in and prove something works and then you stop. You need someone in place afterwards. So those are my tips. So in the context of, you know, how do you persuade and influence an organization to be more consumer centric? First question is, what can you do with your employees and what can you give them as a compromise? First? That's my first tip. The second thing is, you know, how do you create some sort of unity amongst that group? Third thing is there needs to be someone and it needs to be someone that you know is going to be there for the long term, that's going to act as a system steward. And my final piece of advice, you need to be patient because the reality of the situation is it's not going to change tomorrow. It took us two years, Molina, to get the first signs and signals that these things were working. And it took us a further two years to be reasonably comfortable in saying it seems like these effects are being sustained and maintained. So it is transformational. But you need patience and it's hard, you know that, that you know how hard it is.
- [37:53]
Melina Palmer
Yes, definitely. And I think that that context piece is, is such a key part of the equation. I talk about context all the time and knowing that, you know, it gets complex in that way. But I think it's kind of fun to turn it into the game of what we can find, what we can try if we tweak evidence, if we move emotion, like you're saying. I think it's interesting approach for people and I think like you said, it's so important to know it's not a we say for when people ask about working with us, you know, it's not if you're looking for a silver bullet, that's not what this is. Right. This is a long term process of.
- [38:30]
Learning and understanding and iterating and trying.
- [38:33]
And, and experimenting and, and keeping it going. So I love that you're, you know, on the same wavelength, not surprisingly.
- [38:41]
Steve Martin
Well, you're exactly right. I think it's a fool's errand to chase a change that fine, if you just want someone to, I don't know, transact with you once and you don't really care about whether they come back to you or, you know, what, what the potential spillover or unintended consequence rather is of that. But it strikes me that that's not where people are really interested. And also it strikes me as a very dangerous proposition for any applied behavioral science work to be essentially pigeonholed in that, oh, you're just the guys that tweak and move things around the edges. And let me just say, if I may, for the record here that I am very, very firmly of the opinion that when you look at the most successful, sustained application of behavioral science, it's influence. It's influence. Behavioral science is just an input. No one phones us. I don't know, if they come to you and your company say, hey, I want to buy some behavioral science. They never phone me. I might be one of the best known behavioral sciences around, but they don't call me and say, hey, Steve, I want to buy some behavioral science. They say, steve, we're looking to influence this outcome. We're looking for this change. We're looking to persuade an influence. So it strikes me that. But, you know, let's, let's be clear about what our role is here. It is to have influence. It is to affect a change. And you're right. Little tweaking around the edges or thinking that you can just achieve it in a moment and your work is done, I think is a fool's errand.
- [40:22]
Melina Palmer
Definitely. Well, thank you for answering the big question, at least as a place to start with that. Like you said, I know I asked a very challenging question in that way, knowing we weren't going to have, you know, we've solved it, you know, here in the podcast, wouldn't that be great? Do you have any last of a first thing that people can do? We talked a bit about reciprocity. I think you had there in that kind of give, give first being, you know, maybe that's the, the moral of the day. But is there any, you know, first quick thing if people are going to go moving forward, in addition to, of course, buying their own copy of Influence at Work?
- [40:59]
Steve Martin
Well, you mentioned that chapter eight, where I'm asked questions about the influence process, primarily in business, there's one that I'm asked more than any other and the question is a simple one. And people say, what is the one thing that I can do today that will kind of increase my influence, make me more persuasive? This kind of thing? And one of the things I quickly learned when trying to answer that question is people don't really want to know the real answer, which is that there is no one single thing. And people's eyes would glaze over when I tried to kind of explain that, because all they're looking for is give me the one thing that I can do. I asked you a question. Give me one thing. Don't give me a reason why you can't give me one thing. Give me one thing so I can go and do it and I can go and look for Another life hack that will change my life and make it quicker and easier and more efficient. So I ended up just giving them 1 million. I just kind of thought the simplest thing to do is let's ride this horse in the direction the horse is going, rather than try and change it. And, and so my advice was just be more human.
- [41:56]
Melina Palmer
Yeah, definitely.
- [41:58]
That's easy.
- [41:58]
Be more human, be thoughtful, as we say around here at the Brady business, for sure. And I think, as we've already talked about, reciprocity is a big piece of that. So, yeah. Thank you again for everyone who is so excited to learn more about you to connect. We'll of course have links in the show notes, you know, but what's their best way to. To follow you, to connect or anything like that, that.
- [42:22]
Steve Martin
Well, I'm on LinkedIn. You can find us at influenceatwork.co.uk. there's a test that everyone can take for free. You can pass it on to your teams as well if you want to know what kind of influencer you are. Do you, in the context of that influence equation, are you more the data aficionado that tries to influence with information and data, or are you the calculating connoisseur that is a spreadsheet in human form, or are you that, you know, empathetic orator who kind of plays on stories and emotion? So you can go to influencerwork.co.uk, follow the links to the Economist, and you'll get the test. You can do that. You can freely distribute it. There's the book, of course, Influencer Work. And you can find me on LinkedIn as well.
- [43:09]
Melina Palmer
Perfect. Well, thank you again, Steve. It was delightful to chat with you today and, yeah, thanks for being here.
- [43:15]
Steve Martin
Thanks so much for hosting me today, Melina, lovely to talk with you.
- [43:19]
Melina Palmer
Thank you again to Steve Martin for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I really enjoyed this conversation with Steve and of course, reading Influence at Work. The first thing that really sticks with me is the rule of three that.
- [43:35]
He carries throughout the book.
- [43:37]
Three sections of three chapters each. I like when people have intentionality and include things that are meaningful to them, even if it isn't that important to everyone. Being thoughtful and making a clear choice is important. So I like when people make a point to share why they did something like that. I think it helps books and people and brands to stand out from the crowd. I also really love that he included the Q and A of the top 10 questions he's gotten over the years with clear, concise answers. Of course, the answers aren't silver bullets. Context still always matters, but he shares some things to consider, and I'm willing to bet you've wondered about at least least one of the things he lists in the book. Whether it's in a negotiation, is it best to get your number out there first? Or to wait for the other person to start? Or how can I build a working relationship with someone I neither like nor want to work with but have to for whatever reason? Or I've recently been promoted at work and now have people who report to me. I'm dreading review time when I might have to deliver negative feedback and bad news. Any tips? Or with virtual and hybrid working a common feature of working life, what advice do you have for influencing others? When I'm on a screen rather than physically present, or I find myself constantly chasing people, which I'm sure influences what they think of me? Any ideas on how I can nudge people along and still remain liked? Or My manager says I need to be more charismatic? Is that even possible? Or are there any words that are particularly attractive to audiences? And what words should I avoid using? Or what influence strategies work well when persuading people from cultures different to my own? Those aren't even all the questions, but as I said, I'm guessing you were very intrigued to get the answers. And they're waiting for you, along with so many other amazing insights. Those are just from one chapter in Influence at Work. There is a link in the show Notes for you to order your copy, as well as to connect with myself and Steve and to see my other top recommended books and episodes. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 455 and thank you again to Steve Martin for joining me on the show today. It was delightful to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for a another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
- [46:18]
Steve Martin
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit the Brainy business dot com.